Turkey's commercial vehicle brand Anadolu Isuzu continues its R&D efforts with firm steps, leading the latest trends and technologies affecting the automotive industry. Continuing to work in the field of autonomous driving technologies, Anadolu Isuzu works with the Leo Drive initiative in line with the importance it attaches to cooperation with the ecosystem. Within the scope of the project, the Anadolu Isuzu R&D team collaborates with Leo Drive experts, an initiative that develops scalable and reliable software, hardware and algorithm solutions specific to autonomous driving technologies.
Anadolu Isuzu transformed the 8-meter fully-electric Novociti Volt bus into a driverless vehicle platform as part of its collaboration with Leo Drive. Within the scope of the project, the NovoCiti Volt test vehicle equipped with numerous advanced technology LiDAR cameras, sensors, special processors and controllers as well as connected driving systems, was tested through a wide range of scenarios, with and without passengers.
The data obtained from the test drives carried out on the Gebze Technical University campus were used to optimize the developed autonomous driving solution. Considered as a level 3 autonomous vehicle, the NovoCiti Volt autonomous test vehicle demonstrated a safe driving ability in compliance with road signs and traffic lights in various traffic conditions, as well as with crossing pedestrians and vehicles in motion or stopping.
The project is run in collaboration with the Autoware Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to provide autonomous driving technology for everyone and supports open source-based solutions for it.
Established in 2015 and continuing its activities within YTU Yıldız Technopark, the Leo Drive initiative has recently received investment from the Japan-based autonomous vehicle technology company TIER IV.
On the project, the TIER IV also effectively used its digital twin solution-based autonomous driving simulator (Scene Simulator for Autoware - AWSIM), developed as open source to build safe autonomous driving systems.
Powered by the largest open-source community in the autonomous driving ecosystem, Autoware.AI is used by more than 100 companies in over 20 countries. Autoware has licensed self-driving vehicles on public roads in Japan since 2017.
All high-definition maps, datasets, digital twin simulation records and system architectures in the test and development stages of the Autoware-based autonomous driving solution, successfully implemented by Anadolu Isuzu and Leo Drive, will be shared with the ecosystem of developers in this field as open-source.
Anadolu Isuzu General Manager Tuğrul Arıkan stated the following on the subject:
“As Turkey's commercial vehicle brand Anadolu Isuzu, we do not merely follow the trends that transform the automotive industry but also take part in shaping them as an active player. We derive our strength from our expertise over 40 years in the field of commercial vehicles, our innovative and environmentalist character, and our superior R&D capability. As Anadolu Isuzu, we lead the industry with our ever-developing electric vehicle portfolio, besides the environmentally friendly biogas and hydrogen-fueled vehicles and our efforts in autonomous driving technologies. This project, which we have successfully carried out using the world's most advanced open-source technologies at the autonomous level 3, constitutes a very important component of our vision to produce innovative, sustainable, safe and comfortable vehicles. With our production infrastructure, technology and expertise, we are ready to meet the needs of our customers in both domestic and foreign markets.”